Mercedes-Benz ML 63 AMG 2012 Review - International

Mercedes-Benz ML 63 AMG

Not so much
>> Heavy, heavy car
>> Some extraordinary options at this price
>> Overheating bugbear still around

The simplest summation of the ML 63 is that it’s a somewhat predictable combination of the anywhere, anytime gristle of AMG’s thumping 5.5-litre, twin-turbo, direct-injected V8 and the surprisingly competent all-round ability of last year’s all-new Benz five-seater SUV package. Somewhat predictable, yes, but don’t be fooled into thinking that’s a bad thing. It’s not, because it all works very, very well.

There are no secrets to the formula, either. The moment AMG unveiled this engine last year; you just knew it was waiting for a chance to stuff it inside the ML. The ML-Class chassis picked up considerable improvements in stiffness and suspension hardware last year, both of which were precisely in line with what AMG would prefer in the donor Benz platforms.

About the only real surprise is that AMG plumped for a torque converter in front of its seven-speed automatic gearbox instead of the multi-plate clutch pack that it fits to everything else. The ML 63 will be used for towing, they explained, and a torque converter does it better.

The switch has done wonders for the ML 63’s light-throttle performance. The clutch pack fitted to the rest of the AMG seven speeders makes for crisper, cleaner, faster gearshifts on full throttle, but can leave them prone to jerky take offs when you’re asking for only five per cent of the performance. That’s not the case with the ML 63, much to its advantage.

It doesn’t exactly dim the big Benz’s straight-line performance, either, because it rips through 0-100km/h in just 4.8 seconds. The even-stronger Performance Pack version slashes a tenth of a second off that.

It’s hard to imagine why you’d want to accelerate 2345kg of top-heavy five-door SUV any harder, but straight-line sprinting only tells half the ML 63 story.

It doesn’t hurt that, with 700Nm from just 1750rpm all the way through to 5000rpm. With a full 1.0 bar of turbo boost pressure force feeding the engine, it’s got everything lined up to deliver the engine’s tyre-twisting power as soon as possible.

AMG's twin-turbo V8 is an engine of extreme complexity, and that goes for its character as well as its mechanical and electrical engineering. Wafting along on cruise control, it feels soft and relaxed. It’s silent at the lights, with auto stop-start saving fuel where you don’t need its power. It’s also relatively quick to spin up to its maximum revs, even though its rev range isn’t that broad, effectively peaking around 6000rpm.

It has a 'bigger', more powerful brother in the Performance Pack version, which has the same weight and the same basic chassis package, but swaps the standard engine’s crunching power and torque delivery for a simply irresistible version. Through the simple expedient of 1.3 bar of turbo boost (and no other mechanical changes), it has 410kW/760Nm, yet still claims the same combined fuel consumption figure of 11.8L/100km.

Theoretically with a 93-litre fuel tank the ML63 should deliver almost 790km of range, but don’t bet your marriage on getting there. We easily convinced our Performance Pack to chew through almost 30.0L/100km and pulled up at the lunch break on fumes after less than 300km. Australia’s driving culture probably won’t see you do too much of that sort of thing, but the fuel needle will drop appreciably whenever you use the ML 63 in the way the engineers intended.

Our test car also struggled with overheating, and it’s not the first time we’ve encountered it in big-engined AMGs. Sustained hard driving found it protecting itself by dropping out of Sport or Manual mode and back into the softer Controlled Efficiency mode, even though no warning light ever came on.

It helps that the all-new ML-Class is considerably better mannered than the car it replaces but AMG has taken it further. It’s still not quite a driver’s car (an almost impossible ask with this much mass to accelerate, retard and yaw) but it’s more entertaining and faithful than most of its ilk. A match up with Porsche’s Cayenne Turbo S would be an intriguing one…

Underneath the ML-Class underpinnings, it gets air springs, independent dampers, adaptive damping and its new Active Curve System, which is basically a set of active anti-roll bars at both ends to compensate for the usual body-roll in hard cornering.

It works superbly, too, and the ML 63 is capable of astonishing cornering feats that seem to defy both physics and fear. It has a way of not only whipping through the bumpiest, most uncomfortable corners at speeds and with G-forces that are scarcely credible, but it also does so with a calming influence.

There’s no panic about what it does and no feeling that the suspension is playing catch up. It’s as though the ML 63 reads the road’s playbook and slots in the perfect defensive pattern at just the right time to counteract it.

The steering is more accurate than ever before and, in Sport mode, it feels demonstrably more precise as well. It even allows for a bit of mid-corner adjustment as well and feels equally at home on smooth roads or bumpy ones, tight corners or fast ones. Okay, so it’s a bit more at home on fast corners, where its sheer mass is less of a hindrance, but it squirts into and out of slower corners in a way that would embarrass a few of the lesser sports sedans.

It helped that the Performance Pack ML-AMG we drove rode on enormous 295/35 R21 Michelin tyres and it also helped that its brakes are huge, powerful, fade-resistant and user-friendly in the way you can modulate the pressure.

But it’s not just a hoon-mobile. In its comfort mode, it’s every bit at home around town as it is everywhere else. It’s happy on light throttle settings, with the engine’s ferocious note turned back down to a gentle, still-menacing burble, and it can silkily swap gears

The ML63's ride switches effortlessly into a comfortable saunter that defies its 35-profile rubber and there’s remarkably little head toss on lateral bumps. Those trick adaptive anti-roll bars work a treat.

The front seats are brilliant, with extreme support for both your back and, around the twistier bits, your torso. The adjustment options they offer are almost limitless. The rear seats, too, are beautifully supportive, especially for two adults, and offer intuitive armrest positioning and lots of footroom.

There are issues, though. The ML 63 doesn’t come with a spare tyre (though I can’t think of a single vehicle on sale today with a 20- or 21-inch tyre that does, and the old ML 63 didn’t have a spare, either), but instead offers a significant, tyre-sized hidey hole beneath the luggage area floor instead.

It also runs an old-school put-and-twist key in an era when far more humble (and cheaper) machinery let you keep the key in the briefcase. On our test car at least, the push-button tailgate was optional.

But the cabin is a terrific place to spend time; from its alloy gearshift paddles to the flat-bottomed leather steering wheel and from its powerful audio system to the stupendous levels of passive and active safety the thing offers.

It’s a €108,885 [AUD $133,740] machine in Germany (the Performance Pack adds another €7021 [AUD $8625]) and AMG’s going to sell every single one it can build.

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